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Cousins, at Eight



Our uncle owned the town’s only
filling station, a two-pump Texaco
with a tow truck, next door to
the funeral parlor. When I visited
my southern cousins, we played
hide and seek in the new tire piles,
helped ourselves to chocolate milk
kept especially for us in the Coca-Cola
cooler. We took turns cranking the ornate
cash register. When it opened, its bell
signaled the start of our sprint down
the wooden sidewalk to the general store
for ice cream; Little Miss Sunbeam
on the rust-pocked screen door, smiling
mid-bite as we slammed past, slapped our
pilfered nickels down as if we’d earned them.











Martha Christina lives in Bristol, RI. She is a frequent contributor to Red Eft Review, and her work has also appeared in earlier issues of Star 82 Review, Crab Orchard Review, and the Tiny Seed Pollinator Project, among others.

See more of her work in 10.4 and 10.4 and 10.4 and 10.1 and 9.4 and and 9.3 and 9.3 and 9.2 and 9.2 and 8.2 and 8.2 and 7.4 and 7.3 and 7.2 and 6.3 and 6.3 again





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